Original subtitles

NARRATOR: This program is about unsolved mysteries.

Whenever possible, the actual family members

and police officials have participated

in recreating the events.

What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

ROBERT STACK: In September of 1979,

19-year-old Micki West vanished without a trace.

Exactly seven years later, a note

was found from someone who claimed to have

witnessed Micki's murder.

But his identity remains unknown.

Between 1890 and 1920, thousands of homeless children

rode orphan trains to new families in the Midwest.

Today, many want to find the brothers

and sisters they never knew.

In 1967, a five-year-old boy fell into a rain-swollen creek

in Nutley, New Jersey.

Two months later, his body was found

in the river three miles away.

In 1974, a New York banker boarded a commuter train

to take him home to New Jersey.

During the train ride, he vanished.

Two months later, his body was found

on the bank of a nearby river.

In 1976, a 14-year-old schoolgirl

left her home on Staten Island to look for a summer job.

That afternoon, she disappeared.

Two years later, her body was found in an abandoned shipyard.

What links these cases together is Dorothy Allison, a housewife

from Nutley, New Jersey.

She predicted where all three bodies would be found, what

happened to the victims, and, remarkably, in two cases,

predicted when they would be discovered.

Dorothy Allison and the authorities

with whom she has worked claim she has psychic powers.

In my lifetime, this is the most amazing thing that ever

happened to me-- to see the ultimate results of everything

that she had said.

It's as though I turned on a TV station and got a picture.

And this is what I get when I get a vision of something

or a place or a person or anything.

It's as though you're turning on-- tuning in on a TV set.

Dorothy Allison is called almost daily

by police detectives.

And although she's never paid for her work,

she's been asked to help in hundreds of investigations.

In the next hour, we'll follow Dorothy Allison

on a current murder investigation

and explore two other unsolved mysteries.

I'll also tell you how our viewers

helped capture a murder suspect and his teenage girlfriend.

Join me.

You may be able to help solve a mystery.

[theme music]

On the morning of September 11, 1979,

in the small town of St. Joseph, Missouri,

a young woman named Micki Jo West left for work.

She was never seen again Her friends

and family suspect foul play.

But her body has never been found.

I think I know what happened to Micki.

I think I know who did it.

And I think I know why they did it.

We have a suspect that we established the day

after the disappearance.

We've talked to him several times.

We know where he lives now.

We know where we can reach him.

We just simply have no evidence against him at this point.

I believe that this person who's described

as a number one suspect-- I believe that he abducted her.

And within two or three hours of that time,

I believe he killed her.

ROBERT STACK: At the time of her disappearance,

Micki Jo West was 19 years old.

She was an outgoing, friendly girl,

who worked as a nurse's aide at the St. Joseph State Hospital.

She was funny.

She could make a bad situation into a good one.

When I had bad days, and I was at my worst end, she'd come in.

And everything would be all right, because she'd

say something funny.

ROBERT STACK: Micki became involved

in the bitter marital dispute of a friend of hers-- perhaps

too involved.

She began to receive threats.

The last time I talked to Micki on the phone,

she was scared.

She was afraid for her life.

So she told me she was going to carry

a hammer to work with her.

That next morning, she got up and left her house

and was on her way to the bus stop.

And that was the last that anyone ever heard from her.

At this point, the only case we have is a missing person.

We have no crime.

We have a missing person.

We have no body to establish a murder case.

Without a body, we cannot convict anyone of murder.

We have evidence that there were threats made to Micki,

that she was followed by this person,

that he had a motive to do this, that he could have done this.

We just need the body.

ROBERT STACK: For seven years, no new evidence was found.

Then, in 1986, a delivery man at a Kansas City

shopping mall 75 miles from where she disappeared

found a letter.

It was addressed to the St. Joseph police.

He opened it and read, "I need your help.

I was with--" and here, we cannot mention

the person's name-- "when he killed

Micki Jo West and hid the body.

I can kill myself now.

Please help."

This letter was unsigned.

TIMOTHY SCHWEDER: About a month later, on October 2nd,

another note is found in the same mall.

A security guard who worked in the mall

found this note in a hallway there.

It was obviously the same envelope, the same paper.

Obviously, it was the same person.

It had the same message on it.

And it, too, was delivered to the police in Overland Park

and then eventually to our department.

Both of the notes named the man who has been

and is now the prime suspect.

The author in these notes said that he was with the person who

had killed her, that he did not kill her himself,

that he could not stand this knowledge that he had,

and that he needed help.

They were both inside.

And so far, we have not come up with any solid leads

as to who the author is.

ROBERT STACK: Seven weeks later, three more letters were found,

this time in St. Joseph-- the town where Micki was last seen.

The first of these was discovered in a shopping mall.

The same day, another was found at a local truck stop.

Then, a janitor found another letter in the same St.

Joseph shopping mall.

After the three notes were found in St. Joseph,

we had a total of five notes-- all established to be from

the same author, all saying the same message,

naming the same suspect, but getting us no closer to making

the case or proving the case against this

person than we were before.

We've explored the possibility that the notes are a hoax.

But we believe they're genuine because of the details that he

has given us about the crime, because of the way

they are written, because of the feelings that they express.

They just seem realistic.

When we examined these letters, it was obvious to us

that the person who wrote them was intimidated by the person

who killed Micki Jo.

These weren't letters written by a stranger.

They were written by someone who was personally

acquainted with the victim.

There are deep-seated feelings of guilt--

not guilt because the writer was personally

responsible for having killed Micki,

but because he was present when it happened

and wasn't able to stop it.

ROBERT STACK: On January 13, 1988,

nine years after Micki's disappearance,

another letter turned up at a Kansas City Mall theater.

It was addressed to the police and a local TV station.

Eight months later, a reporter for the TV station,

Thurman Mitchell, received a letter

addressed to him personally.

TIMOTHY SCHWEDER: In this letter,

the author said that if Thurman would come alone,

he would show him where Micki Jo West is.

He said that he did not want the reward,

that he was not interested in the reward.

He said that he was not himself involved in the crime,

but that he needed help again.

THURMAN MITCHELL (ON TV): Because this latest letter

was mailed to the station--

TIMOTHY SCHWEDER: In response to this letter that Mr. Mitchell

received, he did a news story asking

this person to come forward and contact him personally.

THURMAN MITCHELL (ON TV): --about Micki Jo's death.

We're asking that witness to call the telephone number

on the screen and talk to us.

And we'll pass that information on--

ROBERT STACK: An on-air appeal proved unsuccessful.

Today, the letter writer remains anonymous.

The case of Micki Jo West is still unsolved.

The author of these notes is the most important witness

that we could have in this case.

If he knows where she is-- if he was there,

and he will testify-- he is absolutely crucial.

I would just like to ask him to come forward,

and tell us what he knows.

Or if he doesn't want to come forward, write us a letter,

and tell us where she is in the letter.

Or give us a phone call.

Come forward in some way.

We miss Micki.

And it's been nine years.

And we just want to know what happened to her.

[music playing]

[theme music]

ROBERT STACK: Last month, we broadcast a story

about Dave Davis from Pittsford, Michigan-- a man

accused of murdering his wife.

On July the 23rd, 1980, Davis and his wife Shannon

were horseback riding on their farm 80 miles outside Detroit.

Davis claims that Shannon lost control of her horse,

fell, and struck her head.

She was rushed to the hospital, but doctors

pronounced her dead on arrival.

After a few days, Shannon's parents

found out that Davis had taken out six large life

insurance policies on Shannon.

They had their daughter's body exhumed.

The results showed traces of an animal tranquilizer,

as well as two injection marks-- one on her wrist,

and one on her shoulder.

Police found out that Davis had indeed

had access to the animal tranquilizer

through a deer hunting group.

Just as his arrest seemed imminent, Davis fled.

He had not been seen since October the 13th, 1981.

FBI and different ones had said, don't discount the fact

that he may already be dead.

But we felt like, no, he's out there someplace.

He was a rugged outdoors individual.

He was a survivor.

ROBERT STACK: We broadcast Davis's story twice.

Within days of our second broadcast,

Dave Davis was captured.

A viewer identified him as a man named Davis Myer Bell, who

was living on the tiny island chain of American Samoa,

2,000 miles south of Hawaii.

Davis, alias Bell, was arrested three days later.

REPORTER: Any comment on the charges against you, Mr. Davis?

I didn't do it.

REPORTER: Police say your wife was poisoned.

I didn't do it.

ROBERT STACK: Police learned that four years ago,

Davis had fled to American Samoa,

where he lived in this house.

Before that, he had lived in Florida, Haiti, and Alaska,

among other places.

Two years ago, he married a 20-year-old Samoan woman.

He told her that his first wife had died in a tragic accident.

In American Samoa, Davis obtained a job as a pilot

for a small commercial airline.

He was apprehended on his way to work at the airport.

Davis was extradited to Honolulu, Hawaii.

He admitted his identity and voluntarily agreed to return

to Michigan to stand trial.

In return, federal authorities dropped

charges of unlawful flight.

[music playing]

[theme music]

Around the turn of the century, the streets of New York City

were filled with starving immigrant children who

had no one to care for them.

The city orphanages overflowed.

School classes and afternoon naps

often took place outside, even in the bitter cold.

To alleviate the crowded conditions,

the Children's Aid Society of New York

came up with a unique plan.

They began to put orphans on trains bound

for the South and the Midwest, hoping

they would be adopted by farm families along the route.

Between 1890 and 1929, scores of trains

carried at least 150,000 orphans into the heartland of America.

Sadly, many of them were separated

from their brothers and sisters, whom

they would never see again.

In 1910, two brothers named Algie and Johnny

rode in an orphan train.

Along with a group of other orphans,

they headed for Arkansas, hoping to be adopted.

ALGIE BRALY: When we left New York, none of us

knew where we was going.

But the guy that took us knew where he was headed for.

Fayetteville was the destination.

ROBERT STACK: When Algie and Johnny's train

arrived in Fayetteville, Arkansas,

prospective parents were waiting to look the children over.

The brothers hoped they would be able to stay together.

This stop-- Fayetteville!

ALGIE BRALY: When you stopped, why, they just

lined us up beside the track.

The one thing I remember, I just wondered what they was

going to do with me and Johnny.

I had hoped that we'd both be in some home together.

People commence coming and look at the kids.

Some of them took them to make farmers out of them

or slaves out of them.

Some people take them 'cause they loved them.

MAN: How do you like this one?

WOMAN: Oh, I like him.

What's your name?

Algie.

MAN: Algie, you're going to go with me.

ROBERT STACK: When it came time to make the decision,

the couple who took Algie only wanted one child.

ALGIE BRALY: He took me and didn't want to take Johnny.

Well, they just pulled us apart.

And I just tried, but I couldn't.

But I just know they separated us.

One fellow took Johnny, and one took me.

Finally, oh, it took me a long time.

I got over that.

But still, it come to my mind once in a while, where is he?

Hadn't been for the old man that raised me,

I wouldn't have found--

I know it.

He took me around--

ROBERT STACK: Happily, Algie and Johnny, the brothers

who were separated when they rode the orphan train,

have been reunited.

I was treated good.

ROBERT STACK: Tonight, we will meet two other orphan train

riders, Francis Murphy and Sylvia Wemhoff,

who have been unable to find their lost siblings.

In 1921, Sylvia Wemhoff, whose last name then was Wolk,

was taken out of a New York City orphanage

to ride an orphan train to Nebraska.

Her parents were dead, and she left behind an older sibling

about whom she knew nothing.

Sylvie was three years old.

And the children on her train had

been selected, sight unseen, by members of churches

in Columbus, Nebraska.

Sylvia was a very small child when she rode the orphan train.

She was taken in a bit of a different manner,

because she was spoken for ahead of time.

On your papers, there's a name and a number.

The number will correspond with the number here.

MARY JOHNSON: Numbers would be sewn

onto the children's garments with their name

and the birth date.

The corresponding matching parent

that had been found and located by the foundling hospital

would have a number corresponding to the number.

And when they got to the train station,

they would match the number and take the child.

WOMAN: Are you Sylvia?

Would you like to go home with me?

MARY JOHNSON: And this was the way Sylvia Wemhoff was chosen.

ROBERT STACK: Sylvia's last name was

changed to Mick when she was adopted

by the John Mick family.

They had a small farm in Lindsay, Nebraska.

And Sylvia, along with another orphan-- a boy--

was happily welcomed into the family.

When I was about 17, 18 years old,

and I began to question my Mother Mick whether I had

any brothers or sisters, and if so,

I wonder if we could ever get together.

ROBERT STACK: After years of searching,

Sylvia located her birth certificate.

It showed that she was born Stephanie Wolk,

spelled W-O-L-K, and that her mother,

Pauline Vitovich from Austria, already had

a child when Sylvia was born.

Sylvie was adopted when she was three years old

and today is 70.

She is desperately trying to locate her missing sibling,

even though there is no way to tell whether she is looking

for a brother or a sister.

The day after our broadcast, Sylvia's search came to an end.

She learned that her brother, 72-year-old Joseph Wolk,

was living in New York City.

Wolk's stepdaughter had seen our broadcast

and recognized the names on Sylvia's birth certificate.

On September 25, Sylvia flew to New York

and met her brother Joseph for the first time.

Joseph!

Your sister Sylvia is here.

How are you doing?

I'm Sylvia.

Sylvia.

I'm so glad.

I'm so happy.

I'm so happy, too, to see you.

We hugged each other.

And we were just really thrilled and happy that we

finally, finally got together.

I had heard I had a sister.

And I was awfully pleased when I saw her and thankful-- thankful

to God.

Yes, that's me on there.

ROBERT STACK: Most brothers and sisters grow up

sharing their lives together.

But for Sylvia and Joseph, the love and memories

are just beginning.

The next man we will meet is Francis Murphy.

In 1928, when he was 11, he too rode the orphan train.

His baby sister, Margaret, and his mother,

who was too poor to take care of him, were both left behind.

FRANCIS MURPHY: When I got on the train,

I didn't really feel that I was being

wrenched away from somebody.

I didn't know that much about my mother,

so that it wasn't a matter of tearing me away from her,

because I was away from her all the time anyway.

It was a big adventure more than anything else.

As a kid in New York, you have to remember

that we didn't know the West.

And what we knew was from the picture

shows we saw of cowboys and Indians and maybe engineers.

And going that direction-- well, that

was the biggest thrill that a kid in my time

could really expect.

ROBERT STACK: Francis's excitement

soon turned to sadness.

[inaudible]

Hello, I'm Camille Mitchell of the Children's Aid Society.

I brought your boy.

ROBERT STACK: At stop after stop,

potential adoptive parents would be waiting to pick

their child from the crowd.

But not all the children found new parents.

Can I get your signature please?

Okay.

ROBERT STACK: Francis, who had boarded the train in New York

with such high hopes, began to realize

that none of the families along the train's route wanted him.

CAMILLE MITCHELL: This is your son, Luke.

MAN: Hi, Luke.

Welcome to our family.

14 or 15 children that were leaving.

And you got off the train with their belongings.

And they told me, Francis, you should stay on the train.

MARY JOHNSON: And he would see the crowd get smaller

and smaller until finally he was the only child left

on the train. - Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye!

All aboard!

That's right, son.

[train horn blowing]

ROBERT STACK: Francis never was adopted.

He went from family to family as a foster child.

In spite of his early hardships, Francis's life turned out well.

He became a high school teacher, married, and had five

children and six grandchildren.

Francis Murphy, who rode the orphan train 60 years ago,

developed heart disease in 1987.

And sadly, he died soon after we filmed

his interview in November.

Francis's wife and family have continued his search,

and they asked that we present his story, despite the fact

that he is gone.

They hope to unite the family who still loves Francis

with the family he never knew and wanted

so desperately to find.

It was extremely important to Francis

to go ahead with this interview.

He had been looking forward to it for literally months.

And just the hope that he would find somebody, particularly

his sister, was important.

He didn't know much about love growing up.

And he found out as he got older and had a family of his own.

I think his finding Margaret would

be an extension of that love.

It's still very important to us that we

finish what he tried to do.

ROBERT STACK: Francis Murphy's sister, Margaret, would

be about 62 years old today.

She was probably born in either Yonkers or New York City,

and she may have been adopted.

Francis and Margaret's mother was Hilda Harding Murphy.

Their grandparents were John and Elizabeth

Harding from Nova Scotia.

Francis's father was Martin Murphy.

[theme music]

These are affidavits from police departments around the country,

attesting to Dorothy Allison's psychic powers.

The use of psychics in police work

is almost always controversial.

Frequently, they're inaccurate.

All too often, they are charlatans.

But there are a few who do, indeed,

seem to have a special gift-- the unexplainable ability

to predict details still locked in the future,

an ability which, in itself, is an unsolved mystery.

On December 3, 1967, five-year-old Michael

Kurcsics and his older brother went

out to play at around 8:15 AM.

As they were playing, Michael lost his footing,

fell into a churning river, was swept away, and drowned.

Two hours before Michael's accident, at 5:56 AM,

Dorothy Allison awoke from a horrific nightmare.

Her lucid and frightening dream predicted Michael's death.

DOROTHY ALLISON: I saw this little boy in a pipe.

His hands were like this in the dream.

They were clasped together, and they were very black.

I didn't know why they were so black, because he was so white.

I saw this tremendous illumination of light,

almost as though he had been in, it seemed to me, like a vacuum.

ROBERT STACK: For weeks, the authorities searched the river.

But there was no trace of Michael's body.

A month after Michael disappeared,

Dorothy went to the police and insisted that someone

listen to her story.

I had a dream of this little boy stuck in a pipe.

ROBERT STACK: The one brief newspaper

article about the case did not contain a picture of Michael.

The police were startled when Dorothy accurately described

the clothes he was wearing.

DOROTHY ALLISON: He had on this green snowsuit.

Underneath the snowsuit, he had on a polo shirt

with the stripes.

And underneath that, an undershirt

with a medal pinned to it.

And also, he had his shoes on the wrong feet.

MAN: There was a possibility that this

could have been a hoax.

There's always that possibility.

When she came up with this description,

I became overwhelmed, because I knew this boy.

I knew this family.

It just got me to a point where I had to know more

about what she was dreaming.

Maybe there was something more that she couldn't remember now.

Maybe just questioning her would bring more of it out.

But we were going to work with her, because she got me.

She just got me.

When I started to talk to Don, I kept telling him

that I saw the number 120, but whatever that meant,

I don't know.

I also saw the number eight and didn't

know what that meant either.

And I kept insisting that his body would

be found behind the school.

I insisted on that.

ROBERT STACK: As the search for Michael continued,

Dorothy's clues began to mount up--

the number eight, the school, the parking lot behind an ITT

factory, lumber, gold lettering on a window,

and the number 120.

MAN: She had mentioned a number 120 the very first day

that we were together.

And we thought, well, maybe it's an address.

And in the area that we were in initially, there was no 120.

Then we thought, well, maybe would be January 20-- the month

and the day.

That came and went.

No significance whatsoever, but that 120 kept coming up--

and to me, especially, and I couldn't understand why.

By now, they were starting to lose their patience.

And Don [inaudible] says, my god, I'm trying,

but I don't know what you're saying.

I said, well, look, he will be found on February 7.

And then our troubles will be over.

You will know the story of Michael Kurcsics.

The day the boy was found, it was

1:20 in the afternoon of February 7

that I was told that the baby was found.

ROBERT STACK: The spot where Michael's body

was found coincided with several of Dorothy's clues.

Dorothy's vision of a number eight was echoed by the fact

that Elementary School PS 8 stands on the riverbank nearby.

Across the street is a lumberyard.

Next door is an office building with gold letters

on the window.

Directly across the river is a local ITT

factory and its parking lot.

And when Michael was found, he was

wearing exactly the same clothes that Dorothy had dreamt.

And although his galoshes were on the correct feet,

his undershoes were indeed on the wrong feet.

We backtracked.

And everything that she was saying now

fit into place, just like a puzzle.

You pick up a piece, and you toss it around until you

link it and show the picture.

It means nothing.

But now, everything seemed to fit in place.

And we started-- I started to kick myself for not knowing

what she was talking about.

There have been many, many times

that I struck out completely.

And I really wanted to find the child and got no answers.

Till today, I don't know why.

But there are several cases where I never

come up with anything, not even one little clue that I know of.

ROBERT STACK: Dorothy Allison has lived in New Jersey

all her life.

She has four children, and her husband, Bob,

is an engineer for a construction

company in Manhattan.

When Dorothy was 14, she had the first indication

of her psychic abilities, when she correctly predicted

the death of her father.

Since the Michael Kurcsics investigation,

most of Dorothy's cases have been homicides.

Many of the victims have been children.

DOROTHY ALLISON: I've often thought to myself,

why does this happen to me?

Why not somebody else?

Because it has been very hard on me emotionally, physically.

And it has not been a happy thing for me at all times.

ROBERT STACK: On December 20, 1974,

a New York banker-- John DeMars--

left his Manhattan office to ride

the train home to New Jersey.

He was happily married with two young children

and habitually called his wife if he was going

to be even five minutes late.

But on this day, when his train stopped at Nutley,

John DeMars was not on board.

He had simply vanished.

SAL LUBERTAZZI: Our first thoughts

were maybe he embezzled money.

But we didn't find anything wrong with the bank.

Maybe he ran away with another girl.

We found out that that wasn't true.

We just couldn't find this fella,

so I went to see Dorothy.

I said, Dorothy, I'm looking for a male adult that's been

missing for more than 24 hours.

Her first words were to me was, he's drowned.

I said, he fell off the train.

He said, how could he fall off the train in the water?

I says, nope.

I said, you received misinformation.

He fell off the train.

He's in water.

So I says, well, can you give me any other clues

as to where I would find Him

I said, I see a row of tires, a little park where children

go down a hill on their sleds.

I see a fire engine that children play on.

And I see this man in this water here.

Then she told me that she sees a bow and arrow.

Now, where do you find a bow and arrow?

I thought she was crazy.

Hey, good job.

ROBERT STACK: Two months after the disappearance, a father

and his teenage son were target shooting

with a bow and arrow on a bluff overlooking the Passaic River.

One of the arrows missed the target

and landed a few feet from the body of John DeMars.

The body was found on February 22.

Dorothy had mentioned the number 222.

Nearby was a park where rows of tires

had been arranged to make a sled run.

The question remained-- how did John DeMars, a train passenger,

drown in the Passaic River?

The authorities theorize that DeMars

dozed off on the way home.

The train made an unscheduled stop

on the Passaic River Bridge.

The conductor opened the doors to let another passenger

off the back of the train.

John DeMars, still half asleep, thought

he had reached his station.

He stepped out into space and fell into the river below.

Chills go up and down your spine.

Believe me.

You look around.

You look at your notebook.

All these notes that you wrote down three months ago,

and everything that she had said was exactly there.

Everything that she had said.

How Dorothy can do these things--

I don't understand psychics.

I don't know how Dorothy's mind works.

All I know, if Dorothy told me, Ellen,

go outside and cross the street, I would

go out and cross the street.

Because I don't know what she's seeing for me.

ROBERT STACK: Ellen Jacobson and her husband,

Bill, became involved with Dorothy

after their daughter disappeared from home in 1976.

On May 15, 14-year-old Susan Jacobson

left her Staten Island home to interview for a job

at a local ice cream parlor.

When Susan didn't return for dinner,

her parents contacted the police.

BILL JACOBSON: We were basically told that our daughter was 14,

she had a boyfriend, and she ran away.

Point-blank, that was it.

And there's nothing they can do, because if she ran away,

they don't have manpower to go and look for 14-year-old girls

who run away.

So we had nothing.

ROBERT STACK: Two weeks later, the Jacobsons

asked Dorothy to help.

She immediately went to Staten Island with her husband, Bob.

Dorothy knew nothing about the case

and had never met the Jacobsons.

ELLEN JACOBSON: When Dorothy came, she was so down to earth,

it was impossible to believe.

I had visions of, oh, a gypsy woman.

I had some visions of somebody laying out a deck of cards

and reading cards to me or reading my hand.

And Dorothy's first reaction when I came in

is, where's the coffee?

Put the coffee pot on.

Ellen, what does 2562 mean to you?

ELLEN JACOBSON: She immediately asked me what

the number 2562 would mean.

And I said, well, I could turn it into February 5, 1962.

I said, that's my daughter's birthday.

She said to me, how about the number 408?

What does that mean? I'm in total shock.

I don't know what she's looking for.

I said, 408. She said, maybe it's 405.

I said, my daughter Susan was born that time.

She said, what's "mar"?

I said, excuse me She says, what's "mar" mean?

I said, what do you mean, "mar"?

She says, M-A-R. I want to see M-A-R.

And I said, please, let's go to the police department,

because the vision that I got right then and there was that

her daughter had been strangled by the boyfriend and that

she was at this place with this big

M-A-R written in red letters.

So I went to the police department

and tried to explain, but to no avail.

ROBERT STACK: The authorities were

unwilling to work with a psychic,

so Bill Jacobson decided to investigate

the many clues that Dorothy had come up with on his own.

BILL JACOBSON: It was an abandoned car, the letters

M-A-R, smell of oil, two sets of dual church steeples,

dual smokestacks, swamps, marshes.

We searched the vast amount of Staten Island.

And the confusion of it is that you don't know

distance and time, and you can't tell past, present, and future.

Eventually, we got into a place that is called Downback.

In this area is an abandoned shipyard

that was apparently active in World War I,

and we found a rock.

And on this rock were painted, in red letters, the letters

M-A-R. All the clues that she had given me helped me

by way of getting me to the area of ground

where Susan was eventually found.

When I saw the M-A-R, I was astounded.

And I felt it had to be the area.

Have to call Dorothy.

Have to get her over here.

Have to show her what I found.

When Dorothy saw the M-A-R on a rock, she said, this is it.

This is where your daughter is.

Now we need the cops.

We need the dogs.

We need the bloodhounds.

We need to drag through the swamps and the marshes.

But we had none of that.

We searched as much as we could by ourselves.

We felt that we had done a good search.

Unfortunately, we never found my daughter.

ROBERT STACK: 22 months later, three boys

were out muskrat hunting in the precise area

where Bill had searched, just 100

yards from the M-A-R letters.

They discovered the remains of Susan Jacobson,

concealed in two oil drums.

BILL JACOBSON: From the place where Susan was found,

you could see-- almost all at the same time--

dual church steeples, the smokestacks, the abandoned car,

the rock with the letters M-A-R. Susan was found in an oil drum,

which is a smell of oil.

And Dorothy had also said that Susan was in water,

but she didn't drown.

ROBERT STACK: The autopsy revealed that Susan had been

strangled and her body dumped at the bottom

of the water-filled hole.

Dempsey Hawkins, Susan's boyfriend,

was arrested, tried, and convicted of her murder.

ELLEN JACOBSON: Dorothy knew that my daughter was murdered.

She admitted to us, maybe nine months after my daughter's

disappearance, to the fact that who did the murder,

she named the person to us.

And everything that she said-- she said how she was murdered

and where-- and what Dorothy said came true.

In the three cases we have seen,

Dorothy's success has been astonishing.

But keep in mind that over the years,

Dorothy has worked on hundreds of investigations

And in many, she was unable to come up with information

that helped the authorities.

In a moment, we'll follow Dorothy on a current murder

investigation to see exactly what she does

and how she does it.

Last March, we looked for a case where we could examine Dorothy

Allison's psychic gifts.

We found a homicide in Hagerstown, Maryland,

where the police are at a dead end.

They agreed we could ask Dorothy to assist on the case and film

the investigation as it happened.

As you'll see, Dorothy came up with the name

of a possible suspect.

But for legal reasons, we have chosen to disguise this name.

We gave Dorothy absolutely no information on the case.

She didn't know the name of the victim or the state

where it happened.

She didn't even know it was a murder case.

Dorothy was contacted by Sergeant Keith Wattenschaidt

of the Maryland State Police, who was in charge

of the ongoing investigation.

DOROTHY ALLISON (ON PHONE): Hello?

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT (ON PHONE): Mrs. Allison?

Yes.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT (ON PHONE): How are you?

Fine, thank you. How are you?

ROBERT STACK: Knowing absolutely nothing about the case,

Dorothy drew up a list of clues the night

before Detective Wattenschaidt's call

and then dictated the list in several conversations

the next day.

DOROTHY ALLISON (ON PHONE): What we should

do is be looking for a janitor in a school,

somebody that worked in school as a janitor.

I feel this was some kind of kidnap, abduction of some kind

or something like that.

I also feel that I'm dealing with a suspect

who has suicidal tendencies and something wrong with the feet.

The numbers one and seven were very important.

Whether it's 71 or 17, I don't know just yet.

ROBERT STACK: The clues were random images that

might relate to the victim, the murder,

friends, or even the police.

DOROTHY ALLISON (ON PHONE): I feel also

that this person wears glasses and sometimes a wig

to look different.

A wig?

DOROTHY ALLISON (ON PHONE): Yes.

Uh-huh.

When I was talking to Dorothy on the telephone,

she mentioned about a police officer,

possibly in disguise, wearing a beard that he now doesn't have

and a wig or hairpiece of that nature.

That kind of keyed upon me, because I'm a policeman.

I don't feel I'm in disguise.

But I am in plainclothes.

I wear a hairpiece.

And I just took a beard off two days ago.

I was on vacation.

And she could have been keying in on me, which is possible.

ROBERT STACK: Dorothy flew to Hagerstown

with her husband, Bob, to meet with Detective Wattenschaidt.

Immediately after they landed, Dorothy

had a name for the authorities.

DOROTHY ALLISON: I've got--

Mrs. Allison, how are you?

DOROTHY ALLISON: How are you?

I'm Sergeant Wattenschaidt. of the state police.

- I know. - How was your flight?

Great.

Listen, I wrote some notes for you.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: Did you come up with anything else?

Yeah, well, I have a name here for you.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: Beautiful, beautiful.

OK.

And I also have some other things that I got.

It's kind of scribbled.

But there's a name for you, OK?

It's either-- Chuck is a nickname.

And then it's either Bernstein or Goldstein-- the last name.

Uh-huh, the last name.

When it comes to psychics, if you looked at them

in a general sense, I would tell you I think

they're a bunch of baloney.

But I'm keeping an open mind towards Dorothy Allison,

because I want to solve this case very badly.

ROBERT STACK: For four years, police

have been unable to solve the case of Lori Zimmerman,

a 15-year-old schoolgirl, who, in April 1984,

left her aunt's house and simply disappeared.

Eight days later, Lori's partially naked body was found

in the forest 12 miles away.

She had been beaten and suffocated.

The coroner found a foreign object lodged in her throat .

DOROTHY ALLISON: I feel that she was in front of a library

when she met these two brothers or two cousins

or twin friends of hers right from her own neighborhood.

She did meet somebody there.

Their name could be [bleep].

ROBERT STACK: Within minutes of leaving the airport,

more thoughts and images flooded Dorothy's mind.

DOROTHY ALLISON: I feel that she had

been raped and then murdered.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: Uh-huh.

I know that if I had to see her, I don't know why,

but I get a feeling she has something

the matter with her head, as though somebody hit her

with something near her head.

I'm getting something on the head.

MAN: Her jaw was broke in two places.

But that, of course, wasn't the cause of death.

I get more of a suffocation feeling.

I know I can't breathe.

There's something hot.

Whatever it is, I feel a lot of heat around this girl.

Tremendous amounts of heat.

No, I think I'm getting a feeling

of what actually-- There's a choking going on in her throat,

too.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: Uh-huh.

She's choking on something.

And this is during the attack, you know, that she is choking.

I think you know what I'm getting at, don't you?

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: Not as a force on the throat,

but it's more of a choking technique.

Exactly.

As though you were gurgling on something, right?

That type of situation, I'm getting.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: There's no way

that Dorothy Allison would have known about an object

being in the victim's throat.

She related that it didn't seem to her

to be a choking of the hands around a throat,

but as a choking of some type of object down

inside the victim's throat.

And I was very surprised that she keyed in on this,

because this is a point in the investigation

that we did not make public.

She definitely, absolutely walked down the street.

And she goes as far as the library.

And then she is picked up in this yellow car

that I described to you-- a real old car.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: Uh-huh.

Well, here's the library right here on the left.

ROBERT STACK: After 24 hours in Hagerstown,

Dorothy had come up with literally

dozens of possible clues.

Many seemed unrelated to the case.

Others would seem misdirected-- Keith Wattenschaidt's

hairpiece, for instance.

And the janitor Dorothy mentioned may have been Lori's

stepfather-- not a suspect.

The individual she named at the airport-- Chuck Goldstein

or Bernstein-- is also not a suspect,

though, according to Dorothy, he may have some information.

But some of Dorothy's clues did seem connected to the crime.

For example, Dorothy had seen the numbers one and seven.

She learned that Lori had been laid to rest

at the cemetery in plot 17.

Dorothy had mentioned the name Cleveland.

The last street sign before the crime scene was at a turnoff

called Cleveland Town Road.

Dorothy had talked about an old church.

Half a mile from where the body was found,

there was indeed an old church.

All these clues might be coincidences,

but they might also be part of a mosaic that, once assembled,

will create a picture of what happened to Lori Zimmerman.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: The people who found the body--

they were coming back--

ROBERT STACK: At the crime scene,

Dorothy experienced the strongest

sensation that she'd felt during the entire investigation.

But as far as that name [bleep],

I feel that-- I feel him stronger than

anybody right now in this area.

I feel that he's the one who took the girl here.

And the reason he murdered her was

because she was reluctant to let him

do whatever he wanted to do.

So she screamed out loud, and he panicked.

And I believe that he hit her on the head-- you know,

the head area.

I believe that he killed her that way.

But I do believe that [bleep] is the man

that murdered this girl.

And I think you should start looking for him.

KEITH WATTENSCHAIDT: OK.

In fact, I'd be positive that he is the one.

Detective Wattenschaidt has run

the name that Dorothy mentioned through the police computers.

But there are no known suspects by that name.

In total, she came up with 50 different clues.

Only when the crime is solved will

we know how many of Dorothy's visions

are really connected to the murder of Lori Zimmerman.

[theme music]

For every mystery, there is someone

somewhere who knows the truth.

Perhaps that someone is watching.

Perhaps it's you.

[theme music]